Words That Shaped Who I Am
I love writing. And reading. And I absolutely love good writing. I can’t tell you how many times I have watched the early seasons of The West Wing written by Aaron Sorkin.
Over the years, I’ve read thousands of blogs and articles and sat through hundreds of talks. These are the 9 articles and talks that permanently changed how I think about software engineering, work, and life, and I keep returning to them year after year. All of these are absolute bangers to me. Not 4/5. Not 4.9/5. Only 5/5. Enjoy!
01. This Is Water
David Foster Wallace · Speech
Topic: Life · Time: 23 minutes · Date: 2005
This is a commencement speech from 2005. Of all the things I’ve read or heard, the section of this speech about operating on the default setting has had the greatest influence on how I think. How I explain this to my friends is that no matter what you’re doing, are you just doing that because that’s what people do or are you aware that you are doing that thing and you choose to do that thing?
02. Cognitive Load Is What Matters
Artem Zakirullin · Essay
Topic: Work · Time: 14 minutes · Date: 2023
This is a great article about not making things more complex than they have to be in the context of writing code. I find this applies much more broadly in my life. For example, if I need to do multiple things (add tags, categorize in the right folder, etc.) to take a note, that note-taking system is not gonna work for me. Same for complex agentic coding setup or text editor setup. If I’m thinking more about the tools than the thing I’m trying to do, it’s not gonna work out long term. Same for something mundane like eating chia seeds everyday. It should be stupid easy to eat them if I’m gonna eat them everyday.
03. Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule
Paul Graham · Essay
Topic: Work · Time: 4 minutes · Date: July 2009
Having a meeting at the wrong time can ruin your productivity for the entire day. Must read so that you have a better understanding for how to structure your day based on the type of work you do.
04. The Grug Brained Developer
Carson Gross · Essay
Topic: Work · Time: 20 minutes · Date: 2022
Just some straight up great advice about software development.
05. Unfortunate Things About Performance Reviews
Rachel Kroll · Essay
Topic: Work · Time: 3 minutes · Date: February 19, 2021
Performance reviews are not exactly a reflection of the quality or importance of your work. Especially as you grow into senior roles. It took me some time to learn, but the sooner you learn this, the sooner you can attain inner peace.
06. Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued
Patrick McKenzie · Essay
Topic: Career · Time: 34 minutes · Date: January 23, 2012
Classic article about salary negotiation, kind of useful to understand how companies think about compensation and hiring. The principles in the article are universal but make sure to adapt things based upon your role, location, market cycle, and your leverage.
07. First, Make Me Care
Gwern Branwen · Essay
Topic: Communication · Time: 8 minutes · Date: January 14, 2026
I can’t count the number of presentations and talks I’ve sat through that would have been more enjoyable if they had addressed why the audience should give a shit about any of this right at the beginning. Although this article is from 2026, I would imagine we already know and apply this principle somewhat. This article just puts that thought in a coherent form.
Another useful idea somewhat related to this is, start your presentations on the second page. Best way I can explain this is, The Martian starts with the crew already on Mars and Mark Watney getting injured, not with the spaceship launch and the 300 days journey to the Mars. If you’re a TV Tropes fan, this is similar to the In Medias Res trope.
08. How to Speak
Patrick Winston · Talk
Topic: Communication · Time: 64 minutes · Date: 2018
This one is a university lecture on YouTube. I saw it about five years ago and still find it useful. I revisit it almost every time before giving a tech talk. If you are speaking in front of people whether it’s a small stakeholder meeting or a tech talk at a conference, this may be the highest-ROI hour you can spend improving your public speaking. Pro-tip: this is a very high information density talk. Take notes while watching.
09. Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs
Adam Mastroianni · Essay
Topic: Communication · Time: 6 minutes · Date: February 23, 2022
Talking about something with brevity and clarity and talking to people in social situations are orthogonal skills in my opinion. And you need to get good at both. This article explores one aspect of what you can do to get good at social conversations.
Hope you enjoyed this list and found at least one useful thing. If any of them unlocked a new insight for you, I’d love to hear about it. Send me an email.